Pastel Live Pop-up Shop

Rembrandt Soft Pastels, known for generations as the world’s most popular soft pastel, occupy a distinct and vitally important segment of most pastel painters’ process.

While not as hard as carre pastels, and not as soft as some of the finishing pastels on the market, Rembrandts are known for their medium softness, their density and consistency. Often called “the workhorse” of the pastel category, this is specifically because of this density and medium touch. Soft enough to easily release color, but hard enough to draw a sharp line, keep an edge and build multiple layers, the versatility of this artists’ tool is nearly endless.

Crafted in the Netherlands on a very specialized, small extrusion machine (we affectionately call it the “Willy Wonka machine”, because of the sounds it emits), these pastels are uniform in their shape and size, and do not crumble, holding their shape. The recipe varies based on the pigment used, but is the most simple of any product we make. Pure pigments, and just enough Kaolin clay to hold the pigment together, there is nothing more simple and nothing with as many possibilities as a pastel.

New to many of you this year are several surfaces under the Rembrandt brand. We’ve worked with paper mills across the globe to bring you a curated selection of papers in a variety of mid-tones that work well even with a light watercolor wash, or with heavy application of dry media, or even inks and gouache. We reached back into history to recreate some of the same colors in our toned papers that the masters used, such as Verona Green, and Sanguine.

Several new fixatives are also available, including a difficult to find oil pastel varnish which will help seal in those oil pastel paintings and protect your work without yellowing.

Finally, our van Gogh oil and carre pastels are loved for their value and quality, allowing for a perfect, lightfast drawing and underpainting pastel, or a rich and buttery oil pastel option.

     

Thank you for visiting us and we look forward to seeing you at the show!